Following the barbaric killing Friday of an Indian soldier in Kupwara along the Line of Control by terrorists, Minister of State Jitendra Singh on Saturday called the act ‘atrocious’ and said that security forces are capable of responding to it. “There can’t be anything more atrocious than this. Pakistan is already exposed but it continues to be in denial mode. Confident our forces are capable of responding to any kind of threat,” Jitendra Singh told news agency ANI.

He also went on to say that the human rights of an army soldier would precede over that of anyone else.

“I am always of the view that the human rights of soldiers should enjoy precedence over human rights of anybody else,” Jitendra Singh added.

On Friday, terrorists, aided by the cover fire from Pakistan Army, crossed the Line of Control (LoC) and killed an Indian Army soldier in Macchil sector of Kupwara district of Kashmir. The terrorists mutilated the body of the soldier. Indian army has condemned the act and has said that they will “respond appropriately” to the incident.

The incident, which occurred under 53 Infantry Brigade, comes amid increasing border tension between India and Pakistan. Earlier on Friday, the Border Security Force (BSF) said that it had killed 15 Pakistani Rangers in retaliatory fire since the escalation of the situation at the border following the death of BSF constable Gurnam Singh, who was hit in a sniper attack on October 21 and died the next day.